"Not because they are easy, but because they are hard" - Inspiration Nation: Episode 232

This episode of the Inspiration Nation podcast discusses John F. Kennedy's famous quote about doing things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Lee and Jose delve into what this quote means, using examples like the moon landing goals that JFK set.

They also debate the importance of setting deadlines and facing challenges to achieve goals. This inspiring conversation will motivate you to take on difficult tasks and push your limits.

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Transcript

Lee Pearson-Kemp  0:00  
Inspiration nation. Hello, Jose Noah Lee camp sadly without writing this week's into new thoughts. So Ryan he's late back from work is the main reason he's not here, but we still send him thoughts anyway. I'm feeling I'll confess Joe, and I just we had some technical difficulties there. So I had a little bit going on with YouTube, but I'm not feeling the 100% right now. So I might work out halfway through this. So we'll see how this goes. I'm sure it'd be good.

Jose Noya  0:25  
When you say we get something you're gonna collapse and we're gonna get if I just disappear off the screen or

Lee Pearson-Kemp  0:29  
something. If you just found 909. For me, that would be good.

Jose Noya  0:32  
So when you're saying you're feeling really well, what's going on? I

Lee Pearson-Kemp  0:34  
don't know. But either a little pinky in the face. Can you

Jose Noya  0:38  
see that? action or something? tonight? Oh, bless you.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  0:45  
Not sure. I thought we're power free. Not because I'm a hero.

Jose Noya  0:47  
I value you for doing this powering through you. And I will call tree night. Oh, no, no, no, I'm for you.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  0:56  
I also appreciate that. Right? That's enough of waffles about me. Jose, you were up with a quote? What are we talking about this week.

Jose Noya  1:03  
So today I'm talking about hope you can hear this because I don't want to keep going away from the mic. Because I do appreciate we are recording a podcast so. But what's today we're talking about John F. Kennedy. And we are talking about his quote. And his quote was, this is why we chose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things, not because they're easy, but because they are hard. And this is fired me because I went on holiday on Tik Tok, I've been on holiday. And I went to I went to space Kennedy centre. And it really inspired me actually. And this was a video that I heard him talk about. And I want to talk about this quote. Because I think that when you do things that are difficult or hard, you appreciate them more than when things are easy. And that's what I'm talking about really so. So that that's really the premise of the whole thing. And just to give a bit of context for it, I have these conversations with my children, and they get the minute they're going through doing degrees. And I tell me, that is really, really hard. But I said, yeah, if you, if you found it really, really easy. You would not value your degree of value anything is because you're finding it hard, you really value it. And that's a really good thing. So life teaches us that anything that's hard to do, we will value and learn. If it's easy, you don't really learn, we just go through the motions. And it's just automatic. That's why this podcast, I think it's really important that we that we don't go crazy. We do need rest and stuff like that, though, we do need to do difficult things and get back into, you know, helping ourselves grow. And that's why I love this quote. So when John F. Kennedy said that with not like humans had not landed on the moon. And as anybody who's a testament to this, has anyone ever seen SpaceX and if you go on to YouTube, just type in SpaceX, and you know, rocket launches, you'll see how many times they failed. And Elon Musk said, building rockets and send them space is hard. And that's what I love. It's just inspiring to me that people can do this stuff. And now you got SpaceX launching rocket all the time, to space. And I think it's exciting. And I think we can we can take inspiration from that. And one of the things that I can say too, is that I probably what about two must be a year and a half, maybe two years that must be needed. Two years ago, I did a coaching programme, which is really hard coaching leaders, and it's really hard. And it is in it and everything. But I really value it. Now I've got this qualification and coaching for leaders and stuff like that. And I really value it because it was really difficult. It was a really hard thing to do to coach leaders get perform and meet the certain criteria for coaching. And now I've done that. And there'll always be a qualification that I really value all my code because it all like they're all on different ways. So yeah, that's why I will do this quote, because, as I say, you don't do them. Because they're easy. You do them because they're hard. So setting a goal is difficult. You think I might not get there. But the fact that you're trying is important. And he was beating my child the other day is that they said they actually had an essay as well just gone on a bit, but just so many things can pop into my mind, but they did an essay, I charted an essay and they got really marked down on it. Anyway, they decided that they weren't happy with that. And they got some really severe feedback. So they took a gamble. Now if they took the gamble, they would lose all their marks and the wherever they get now would be the mark that they get. Anyway, they did three did the colossal agree to the essay they got they got first as we always say first miles is brilliant. But what I said to my child was that it's not that result that I think is great. What I really think is brilliant by that is that you're willing to take that risk and willing to put in the hard work. Take on the feedback and put in the effort to make it great even If it didn't come out that you got a great grade, the fact that put that effort in was the key. And I think we've talked about this a lot before. So there's a lot of things that early that I've talked about. But I think sometimes we base so much on results. It's just a pure effort, which is the most important thing, the things you put in place to keep trying to do those things that you want to do, which is so key. And that's why I love this whole toner Kennedy quote, because I think it speaks on so many levels. But yeah, let me throw the ball over to you the unknown often, right, but we got any thoughts on that?

Lee Pearson-Kemp  5:29  
Yeah, this so this particular quote, and it's a slightly different slant on what you said there, but it really makes me think of something. So do you know when pop quiz, Jose, JFK said, that particular quote,

Jose Noya  5:43  
got to no time? Is it 19? The only song obviously, would it be 1950? Something? It was 1961 61. Okay. Yep.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  5:56  
On the May the 25th 1961. And it's a great quote, I really like that. And I'm sure that's when he said that. But that's it as part of his it's not this idea and twist. But when he put out the mission statement to go to the moon. That was in 1961. And what he said was that we should endeavour to get there by the end of the decade. Yeah. Do you know when they landed on the moon, so it's the late 1960s 1969?

Jose Noya  6:33  
is July the 20th 19

Lee Pearson-Kemp  6:35  
is July 20 1969. It's almost the nation is at our fingertips.

Jose Noya  6:42  
I know that I didn't look at the internet. So when I would suppose can be sent up but myself, I said to your boy, spice pen

Lee Pearson-Kemp  6:48  
out he got it on the sheet engraved on the pen. So yes, there we go. Oh, look at that. polona for YouTubers got the date engraved

Jose Noya  6:56  
on it. It's so cool. Yeah, and actually, I'm getting chills like this. So use this pen. So it goes nice. Sorry.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  7:06  
No, no, you'll get you'll get? I mean, I'll cut you off on the Pinto. We'll come back to depend No, I'll

Jose Noya  7:10  
make a note about that. So your thoughts, right.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  7:14  
1961. He said that by the end of the decade, we should land on the moon. That was the mission. And July 20 1969, within six months of the deadline that he said they landed on the moon. Now, do you think he's so prophetic? That he knew we will do it within the last half of 1969? So I'll set the goal now to do by the end of the decade? Or do you think he set the end of the decade because it seemed like a realistic goal. And people work towards that. And it ended up being? Pretty much on the end of the decade when they landed on the moon?

Jose Noya  7:56  
I think the second half of your answer.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  7:58  
Yeah. And that's the don't get me wrong. And we'll come back to it the stuff about the doing hard things. I think there's a lot of stock in that. But it's a big thing for me here around goals and goal setting and deadlines. More importantly than anything else, nothing. Nothing creates activity more than a looming deadline, it comes back to the whole necessity is a mother of invention thing. So, you know, obviously, this is a big thing at the time we set that goal, they knew how long they had to do it and I dare say the intensity, ramped up and up and up and up to closer, you know, 6263 64, as we headed towards 1969, the goal of by the end of the decade, I dare say it put a bit of extra oomph there to, you know, be there with another you say July 20. And yeah, there's still quite bumps to go, you can remember it was set in 1961. So it's, it's not far off far off the goal. And I really think that to me is he made it important, necessary necessary to do it by the end of 1969. And that's when they did it because that's what was necessary. And I really, I think that's one of the best examples of necessity and more so and so you can create your own necessity people's barf and necessities in different places. And if you tell yourself, if you are disciplined that something is necessary, it becomes necessary and you make it happen. And he made this. I've said the word necessary a lot. It's lost all meaning now but that's what I'm going to say. And you know, whatever it could be eating healthy could be necessary if you make it necessary. exercising every day could be if you made it necessary. finishing a project you're working on could be necessary if you make and similarly all those things could not be if you decide to not be and I think I've been on alongside all three of those things that many times it's a complete mindset thing to drive that and it can be internal as much as external.

Jose Noya  9:51  
You know, I love all that what you said there and I think because sometimes you they may not have reached it, but they did right? They did. But there would have been somewhere activity, they probably would have learned a lot. And they may have achieved it later. But they would have learned so much by having the deadline. Yeah. And it's really important because actually in the coaching world, you know, it's about setting actions and timelines. And when are you going to do that by which actually does create the necessity, you're so true. But like you say, sometimes necessity is forced on you, maybe, you know, maybe you have to go have to eat more healthy, right? Because your health demands it right now. Otherwise, you know, you might be like, my ain't right. But it's necessity, like you said, you can be you can be what you said, you said, it can be a choice. I get eaten after you

Lee Pearson-Kemp  10:36  
work illustration. And I've been on as we will know, which I tried for years, I've had two bouts of holiday in quite quick succession. Now you always have, as you know, when you work in office, you always have an inbox with things in it. And you always have a to do list. And there's a few lingering things that always sit on either of them. Before I went on holiday, both times, so it's a Friday was my last day before both of them. And I completely cleared my to do list and my inbox before each of those holidays. Do you wanna guess how many other Friday's out of the year I left Friday with a completely clear inbox. 00 Really, the only thing was I put in my head, I don't want to go on holiday with this stuff. And you get maybe some of it could have stayed, then it didn't need to be, you know, there's lots of layers you can put on this. But I made it important to do that. And arguably, I could probably do that most weeks if I had that same motivation there. So again, it's just a complete example of the necessity driving, or the the self created necessity driving things.

Jose Noya  11:44  
And I suppose though, there's an extra bit of energy required, there is not going away that you can pace yourself a bit more, but you can put those extra hours maybe so you hit that you hit that goal. So you feel better when you go, we don't usually get that elation or did it so you can just go on holiday. And relax. I do know what that's like. You just don't want any loose ends in thinking about it when you go on holiday. You so yeah, I totally get that. But that's a brilliant thing. Exactly. That's so good. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I love that. Yeah. And again, it's very personal choice. And yeah, I love that goal setting and, sorry. And the fact that we can impose on ourselves, and it does come to ourselves, because no one else is going to do it for us. So we do have to be disciplined. No, Lee, I love that. What your what's your take on the hard part of this?

Lee Pearson-Kemp  12:34  
I'm glad you brought us back to that. Yeah, I think this is key. I think we've talked about this in various guises. But I don't think anything, even down to we talked about my view, you know, happiness, and our natural state isn't necessarily happy, you have to work at it to make it happen. And I think it's surfing everything you want to achieve your you know, your real life example you gave there is you have to take risks, and you have to do the hard things if you want things to happen. And I've seen various conversations for people or things I've seen online and everything. And I do you know, there is sometimes a mindset around stress elimination, you know, if it's stressful, it's not worth my time, I don't want stress, I just want low stress. I think you cap yourself potentially I'm not saying what you should do just just live a constant stress life and embrace that. But there's a there's a middle ground of all of this, I do think I don't think you can go through life avoiding the difficult things, I think you have to hit some of them head on. You don't have to do them all at once. And you can plan and everything else like that. But I think it's essential to buy into the concept that if you want to achieve things, if you want to get certain things, if you want to be certain places. There will be challenges that come with that. And you've got to be prepared to tackle them and put in the effort. I think I think it's a necessity.

Jose Noya  13:49  
Yeah, and I think that's just I think some stress can be good.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  13:52  
I think, yeah, I don't get it's not I'm not advocating people, you know, send themselves crazy. But I do emphasise, I do think there's been a lean towards stress being seen as a 100% negative thing, and I don't think it is I think you've got to be able to manage it and deal with it and internalise it. You got to be conscious of it. But I think see and be in a state of being stressed as a negative to avoid it, I think has taken that far too far in the wrong direction.

Jose Noya  14:24  
Yeah, like I say, if you have too much stress, it's not good for you. You got off you've got to find the balance.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  14:28  
But having none. They've been so good.

Jose Noya  14:31  
We just closed Yeah, just kind of set and human beings waters closed. If we just chill back and everything's not stressful, we will close. And that's not good for our growth. So yeah, I absolutely agree with you. But yeah, I mean, even when I was that we got wellbeing and I was speaking to well being management and they talk about stress by talking about it a little bit stressed, it's okay. It's just when it gets unmanageable,

Lee Pearson-Kemp  14:56  
which is not a really good word for it and manageable.

Jose Noya  15:00  
Yeah. So you know, in wellbeing people, I'm really like our well being manager. And yeah, and he talks about that, which is great. And I think it is a good thing because you will not ever get anything done without a little bit. You need a little bit of a driver. But like I said, it'd be unhealthy to have it all the time, because it's all stuff that creates and stuff like that. And yeah, as I say, is a good thing. So yeah, so doing hard things. Yeah. Really, really good. Yeah, I think that's it for me, I think, apart from the pen.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  15:27  
Oh, yeah. Tell us go back and tell us about the pen.

Jose Noya  15:31  
So the pen I bought from space can be sent to obviously and it's got the Apollo. Apollo 11. I've got a read it again, is Apollo 11 that landed on the moon. And it's got the little Apollo lander there. Oh, let's see what Yes. So it's really cool.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  15:47  
And kinda looks like a little while dT d two, if you squint

Jose Noya  15:51  
that way, that way, he does it that way. But it's really cool. And it's inspirational. So when I use it, you know, I remember that quote. I mean, going to space Kennedy centre was really inspirational, because they did a lot of hard things to go mini when you look at, you know, lies that lost, you know, especially when looking at Challenger. Yeah. That went up and stuff like that people lost their latest discovery, I think, wasn't it discovery, I think, you know, that's the price we're paying. And there is a price, even when we hit our goals, not necessarily that extent. But if we want things bad enough, we do have to, there's going to be certain amount of sacrifice. And so whether you're willing to sacrifice that to achieve the goal that you want, and if you're not, then you, then you're not going to get there. It just depends on what you want. And what's what is the price you're willing to pay. And again, sometimes it's worth it for you. Sometimes it's not going to be a very personal choice, right? So if you do want something, things are achievable, but they're gonna be hard. And you got to pay the price. It's either going to be time and effort, and timelines, and being disciplined, which is difficult, because there's so many distractions because we took those previous podcasts but yeah, I thought that's quite inspirational. But lately, I think I'm done there for this, I think but that is really the key around it. So the I suppose you might want to do a little bit of shilling right? I will I

Lee Pearson-Kemp  17:21  
do some shilling. We appreciate everyone supporting listening. Obviously Joe's pen being the highlight of the show today. Your supporters follow us on Twitter, or this thing called Twitter now follow us on x. Do you call it x? Whatever it is x, isn't it? Yeah, follow us on the app formerly known as Twitter, apt to listen to it and listen to I n look for Jose across YouTube and Tiktok cozino Inspiration nation, just stick that in the search bar, follow and subscribe, you'll get told when we're going live each and every week. And there's loads of great content in between to keep up with as well. And of course check us out inspiration nation.org.uk for everything to do with the podcast, full archive of the shows on their merchandise store and our blog as well. I just I we've had some messages to each show. But I've kind of reinvigorated our blog a little bit so there'll be a companion blog to each episode going up which we are we're getting back into at the moment. So check that out as well.

Jose Noya  18:16  
I love that. Just a little bit of an overview on tick tock we've currently got 2k likes which is brilliant. Love it out there. Thank you so much for everybody who's joined us on tick tock really appreciate you. So thank you James really liked that hit that like button, I think James You were the one that I tipped them off. So thank you, thank you so much. Let's get this out there we do appreciate you really cool

Lee Pearson-Kemp  18:34  
100% We do and of course in wherever you are on now if your YouTube if you're on a podcast player just hit subscribe, leave us a review hit the like button all of that stuff really helps us and tell friends and family. And of course if you've got any views on what we're doing on input, give us feedback have show ideas you can just drop us a note at listen to and listened to I n and the very rarely mentioned email the old fashioned now but you can get us there as well just info at inspiration nation.org.uk

Jose Noya  19:04  
That's really good the email because we do want you to subscribe, you're on the subscriber list because then we can get communicated directly which is fabulous. One other thing we'd say Lou, we've got some big takeaways, right? We're gonna do some takeaways what we're gonna do what's

Lee Pearson-Kemp  19:16  
the big Yeah, so I mean, I've actually I've got my spin on that that quote I talked to you about about it the goal setting thing but actually I'm going to also take away the the doing hard things measure from a sim. It's important. Yeah, not being afraid to lean into that. That's my takeaway.

Jose Noya  19:32  
Yeah, mine's a necessity I think I think what you talked about necessity I think because I've been honest with you since the bathroom holiday like I've really struggled getting back into other things post work really have struggled. So yeah, I always get back into it. releasing content, all that stuff because I really love it. I love these conversations. It's just a no go back to the editing which I really find difficult and hard. But I need to get do this. I have to make that a necessity. So what's your space? I've got to put more stuff out there. Thank you Lee for that. I really like the necessity piece on this. So thank you.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  20:03  
Perfect. I think if we were to put a word cloud around this today's episode, the word necessity would come out like massive in the middle more than anything else.

Jose Noya  20:11  
It was a disaster right? We're getting off. Yes. necessity.

Lee Pearson-Kemp  20:16  
Thank you for watching. We'll be back again next week. All that's left for me is just countless down. Three to one. Integration. I'll catch you guys later.